34 days into the new year and the first 10 on-duty deaths.

On 3 February the United States Fire Administration announced the tenth official on-duty death of 2012. Franklin Township Volunteer Fire Department Chief David M. Flint was killed, and Assistant Chief Sharon Petri injured, when his privately owned vehicle was struck while on the way to fire department training. Here is a specific breakdown of these first ten fatalities.

Age

Average Age: 50

Youngest: 19

Oldest: 63

Department

Volunteer: 7

Career: 3

Two fire chiefs; one captain; six firefighters and one wildland contracted employee, an inmate firefighter.

Nature of Death

Trauma: 4; Unknown: 4; Heart Attack: 2

Cause of Death

Unknown: 4; Vehicle Collison: 3; Stress/Overexertion: 2; Fall: 1

Deaths involving lack of seatbelt use: 2

(1 NC POV response. Seatbelt cited in local news report.)

(1 PA POV response. Ejected; lack of seatbelt reported.)

Deaths Involving Personal Vehicles (POV) and Response: 2

(1 NC POV response. Seatbelt cited in local news report.)

(1 PA POV response. Ejected; lack of seatbelt reported.)

Fireground Activity

On Scene: 1 (1 Fell ill inside apparatus cab on fireground.)

Deaths Which Occurred During Training: 1

(1 Firefighter fell from top of raised, extended aerial ladder during training.)

Deaths Which Occurred Outside the "Traditional" Line of Duty Definition: 6

(1  Inmate firefighter fell unconcious while on training hike; died at hospital. Cause unknown.)

(1 Firefighter fell from top of raised, extended aerial ladder during training.)

(1 Firefighter found unconcious inside station workout room; Activity Type: Fitness Activity )

(1 Suffered heart attack within 24 hours of incident response; died of complications three days later.)

(1 Found dead while asleep on duty.)

(1 Killed in POV crash while enroute to firehouse for weekly drill, according to news reports.)

More details can be found on the Fire Service Sabremetrics page, updated throughout the year.

Bill Carey is the daily news and blog manager for Elsevier Public Safety (FireRescue Magazine/Firefighter Nation, JEMS and LawOfficer sites.) Bill also manages the FireEMSBlogs.com network and is a former volunteer lieutenant with the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George's County, Maryland.

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You are an engine company, not an Italian restaurant.

Despite what hoseload you choose to use, how you configure your hosebed and the number of members arriving as an engine company there is no excuse for spaghetti. It is even made worse when the engine is nosed in or "beached". Your 150' or 200' hoseline is a bundle of kinks at the driver's feet when after positioning on the front yard you may only need two or three lengths at the most. The video below is an example, one of many departments that has positioned poorly and did not stretch the hoseline but grabbed the nozzle and ran for the door.

Being a disciplined and proficient engine company means not simply estimating what hoseline to pull, but knowing how, being able to break it down into fewer lengths if needed. It means that all members act as a company, making sure the first hoseline is free of kinks and properly charged before going to work.

Remember, as the first line goes, so goes the fire. What you may think was a successful knock may just be dumb luck on your part. Do you want to make that the foundation of your engine company?

Bill Carey is the daily news and blog manager for Elsevier Public Safety (FireRescue Magazine/Firefighter Nation, JEMS and LawOfficer sites.) Bill also manages the FireEMSBlogs.com network and is a former volunteer lieutenant with the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George's County, Maryland.

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Comments show that our beliefs are hypocritical once we find a body.
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Two videos, among many heavily critiqued, show the odd irrational, illogical beliefs many in the fire service have towards safety, job duties and rescues. To be blunt, they reveal a large number of hypocrites riding fire apparatus.

Two videos of fireground operations, while very different in many ways, show a striking similarity in comments. The first was of the Hackensack, New Jersey Fire Department's initial operations at a fire in a two-story residential dwelling. Many viewers took on multiple actions recorded, but what is interesting is the complaints about the deputy chief who entered the foyer without any SCBA on.

Now, fast forward to a video from Lake Station, Indiana of a fire in a single-story residential dwelling. Many minutes into the video we see a chief come out of the structure carrying a child, and not wearing any SCBA.

Comments on various sites and FirefighterNation, FireRescue Magazine's Facebook page criticized the Hacksensack deputy and praised the Hobart chief. Of course there were both good and bad acts in each video, some more important than wearing SCBA. One has to realize that videos only show one side at a time and don't include pertinent information such as staffing, department operations, etc. No excuse for either but it helps to be in context when critiquing.

The larger question remains, begging to be asked, why are you such a hypocrite when it comes to safety and firefighting? Why do some of you condemn the Hackensack chief and out of the same mouth praise the Hobart chief? Apparently the act of finding an occupant inside a fire and removing them negates all blatantly obvious acts of safety in the minds of some firefighters.

"But what about when you are on air and find someone and you remove your facepiece to give them your air?"

"Deal With It"

There is a simple answer to that. You went inside, fully inside, with your SCBA on. Perhaps that is why many of the same hypocrites who chastised the Hackensack deputy believe the support of their argument lies in the body of a victim found. That is illogical and quite stupid given all the availability to don SCBA prior to entry. Unfortunately when a safety conscious or rather common sense-conscious individual questions why there is no SCBA worn, the usual answer is that the subject was "getting the job done."

No PPE! The Sky is Falling!

The very technology that has affected our education also unfortunately allows for clothing intrepid viewers to treat each firefighter seen as if he or she was being judged on the red carpet at the Oscars. Leave your gloves in your pocket for a brief moment, fail to don a chin strap or in this case SCBA, and you may have well shown up carrying nothing but the can and wearing boxers. It should be understood that in most urban departments chief officers are, initially, at a fixed command post or are in the street slightly roaming, taking in the scene and operations as they develop. Communication as the beginning fire attack unfolds comes in many forms and is not limited to the handie-talkie. In nearly every article, blog post and training information I've personally seen, avoiding unnecessary radio traffic is proper. Why key the mike when they person you are going to talk to is just down the hall? In the Hackensack video, we must first recognize that you and I were not there. Hard as it is for many of you to believe, all you are seeing and hearing is limited. Everything else is assumption.

Many commentators took apart the Hackensack video for errors they understood themselves. In the time that these two video were online and shared the deputy seen was critiqued for micro-managing and not having SCBA on. Is it true that the chief may have taken in some smoke during his brief time in the foyer? It is possible. Was he micro-managing? I would say no and that since I wasn't there who cares? What I find disturbing in this electronic fire service is the PPE hypocrisy. Would there be no problem if the Hackensack deputy and gone in, past the nozzle team and emerged some time later with a child in his arms, much like the Lake Station fire?

Some of you think so.

While it is true that at times, rare times possibly, firefighters might have to commit acts that increase their risk of injury for a greater positive outcome, these are individual exceptions and not universal norms. To criticize one chief and praise another, with the sole difference between acts of the two being a body rescued is hypocrisy.

If you believe this is perfectly fine, that a body found is the proof you need to dismiss lack of SCBA or other PPE and you point out the lack when no body is found, then you are a hypocrite, playing the rescue card.

Bill Carey is the daily news and blog manager for Elsevier Public Safety (FireRescue Magazine/Firefighter Nation, JEMS and LawOfficer sites.) Bill also manages the FireEMSBlogs.com network and is a former volunteer lieutenant with the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George's County, Maryland.

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Executive Director of the NFFF reminds us of the purpose of "EGH".

Proof that everything on the net is new to someone at one time or another comes as a year old popular post on Fire Service Warrior was being shared again recently on Facebook. What is interesting about it this time? The comment below.

"Everyone Goes Home" is tool to help you do your job better. It is not intended to be bastardized as an excuse.

Bill Carey is the daily news and blog manager for Elsevier Public Safety (FireRescue Magazine/Firefighter Nation, JEMS and LawOfficer sites.) Bill also manages the FireEMSBlogs.com network and is a former volunteer lieutenant with the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George's County, Maryland.

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The cowboy in us asks 'If great responsibility is founded on personal responsibility, then what place does personal experience hold?'

I think I finally put it all together….I understand it now.  Call it an epiphany or a moment of clarity, but suddenly it all made sense.  During a recent class the instructor made several references to the standard EGH ethos, “We come first” and “Risk a lot to save a lot”.  As I listened though, I understood that while he spoke of these things, his perspective was different.  And then it became clear.

People's experience level determines how they interpret "a lot" in terms of "risk a lot". In today's world of less experience, people are pushing to make a lot be very little because they just don't know any better…there experience pool is too small. They are willing to forgo saving a victim and save their own life because that is what they are being taught. Except those teaching it have the balance of experience to know that that is not what they are saying.

It makes perfect sense, risk is based on what you know, as far as what you experience.  So when a very experienced firefighter tells you that you come first and you shouldn't risk "a lot".  It has a different meaning in his mind than in yours.

But then you go back to your department and say "I just took this class where Instructor X from department XXYY says we come first" and that "we shouldn't risk a lot for little gain".  So then every starts saying that we shouldn't search vacant buildings, that smoke kills our victims long before we get there, that we can put the fires out from outside and before you know it the cops are fighting more fire than we are.  All of this is because no one in your department is comparing risk versus gain through the eyes of their instructor, and it can be very difficult to translate their experience into your experience.

When I mention LODD deaths, it is never done so casually.  Each number is a person, with family and friends.  Each number is a person taken from us far too soon, often under circumstances that were traumatic.  We owe it to these people to learn from their experiences, to not repeat any mistakes that were made.

However we have become obsessed with the numbers.  We count them up and then wring our hands that they are too high.  We seek ways to reduce them, often without consideration for what effect it will have on the commitment we gave to the public to be there in their time of need.

Seatbelts and fitness standards will do more to prevent Line of Duty Deaths, than risk avoidance techniques.  Consider this fact, if we never entered another burning structure, it would potentially only reduce last year’s reported deaths by 16. (with some of those 16 open to interpretation as to whether they occurred during inside fire operations)  That means that 65 Line of Duty Deaths would have still occurred. 

There is risk associated with stretching a hoseline, there is risk associated with searching above the fire, there is risk simply getting on the engine and responding.  Yet the degree of risk is far different.  We cannot create a culture of risk avoidance and still expect to do the job we are tasked to do.  We cannot continually develop systems and methods to reduce the risk, when there will never be a uniform application of these ideas.

Chris Brennan made the statement that ‘aggressive does not equal reckless’.  If we take the time to prepare ourselves for the job we have been tasked to do, and we do that job as we are supposed to, then we stand a good chance of reducing Line of Duty Deaths.  Just like if we continue to advocate seatbelts use, and stop letting apparatus respond until everyone is belted in, we will reduce deaths in apparatus accidents.

If we want to truly reduce risk, then we have to start with ourselves.  Get in shape and stay in shape.  Go to the Doctor yearly and make sure we are in good health.  Eat healthy. 

From there we have to train.  Train as if your life depends on it, because it does.  But more importantly train as if your crew’s lives depend on it, because they do too. 

We have to take each response seriously.  Dress for each run, and expect that fire lurks right around the corner.  Failure to do so not only endangers you, but it endangers everyone else on the fireground too.  Imagine your failure to dress leading to someone getting injured, either because they had to help you or you were taking out of the equation trying to square yourself away?

Then there is company and department training.  Realistic and relevant and repetitive.  Train until you can’t get it wrong, then train some more.

If your department has a small workload, then comes up with ways to overcome that through training.  There is no excuse for not being able to do your job because you were not prepared.  And we cannot continually redesign the Fire Service because there is too much risk for those that are not prepared.

Remember, “Everyone Goes Home” was not designed as a shield to hide behind to keep you from doing your job.  It is a program designed to reduce our Line of Duty Deaths by encouraging us to be smarter and better prepared.

I leave you with the words of Paddy Brown, “You can do everything right on this job and still get killed.”

Dave LeBlanc is a Lieutenant with the Harwich, Massachusetts Fire Department. Dave entered the Fire Service in 1986 as a Call Firefighter with the Dennis Fire Department. He worked full time during the summers in Dennis, while attending the University of New Haven in West Haven, Connecticut. In addition to his regular duties, Dave also manages the Department’s Radio system, is responsible for conducting Fire Investigations, and assists in maintaining the computers systems.

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It is a wonder how we did it without the internet.

Just a random thought, but if we didn't have the internet would we still be putting out fires, rather would we still be critiquing them, learning from them? Would we still be aware that in most cases, most fires are one or two line fires that didn't require a Master's Degree in order to open the bale, bleed off the air and check the pattern? Would we be comfortable and encouraged knowing that two or three companies extinguished a fire, searched for occupants, cut off any extension and salvaged personal belongings if it didn't involve a seminar, Skype conference and Twitter hashtag?

I hope so.

Each day and night fires go out, many successfully, and many without our ever knowing a thing about it.

Bill Carey is the daily news and blog manager for Elsevier Public Safety (FireRescue Magazine/Firefighter Nation, JEMS and LawOfficer sites.) Bill also manages the FireEMSBlogs.com network and is a former volunteer lieutenant with the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George's County, Maryland.

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We are not saying you should be reckless, unsafe. We are saying you should be realistic.

For three years we have been running a small page titled "Why We Search". Its content is links to news stories mostly regarding firefighting in vacant, abandoned structures. Some are stories of rescues and some are more important stories involing how departments and citizens are dealing with the dangers of these structures. It is important that you know how such buildings are being treated across the country. Marking, demolition and occupancy all play a part in your operations and safety.

It is wrongly assumed that our mentioning of these fires, particularly when a squatter is rescued, is encouraging firefighters to widely assume that all vacant building fires have a great potential for finding trapped occupants. That is in correct. Instead, our page is meant to reinforce that there are very few absolutes in the fire service and, as we have always stated, your search should always be based upon your department's operations as well as if the conditions and resources allow an immediate primary search.

Despite the ease that our technology allows for news and training information to be disseminated, we still find firefighters, company officers and chief officers who advocate for a strict no search whatsoever policy regarding fires in vacant, abandoned structures. They argue that in general, conditions in these buildings do not allow for anyone inside to survive, much less allow for firefighters to risk their safety by entering.

We say, as evidenced below in a recent news story today, that this thinking is faulty logic.

Are such fires rare? In the averages of occurrences are they extreme? Possibly, but there are no detailed specifics to prove this one way or another. What this does show is that such fires are possible. You can find this out for yourself or you can review our page, "Why We Search." There's no deep investigating done to find these fires; just a daily search on Google.

Operate with respect for your officers and department, carry a safe, smart attitude and learn with an open mind.

Photo courtesy of Brian Slattery/FITHP.net used with permission.

Bill Carey is the daily news and blog manager for Elsevier Public Safety (FireRescue Magazine/Firefighter Nation, JEMS and LawOfficer sites.) Bill also manages the FireEMSBlogs.com network and is a former volunteer lieutenant with the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George's County, Maryland.

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On the scene with The Jolly Rogers of Rogers Avenue.

Box 3940

1040   East  45th  St.

E. 255,   E.310,   E.309
TL.157, TL..59
Batt.  41

7-5-3940
L.147  (FAST)
E.323
Rescue  Co. 2
Squad  Co. 1
Batt.  58
Div. 15

1-story Brick, 50 x 100, Commercial
Exposure 1 is a street; Exposure 2 is a vacant lot; Exposure 3 is unknown; Exposure 4 is a similar type attached.
Batt.  41: Using  All Hands; Fire in a commercial garage. Extra Engine and Truck. Fire is "Doubtful."

E.257, TL.170

Batt.  41: Request HazMat to respond due to materials in the building.
HazMat 1, HazMat Battalion, E.250 (HazTech)

Div. 15 to Brooklyn "Transmit a second alarm. Transmit a 10-70  also.”

2 – 2 – 3940
E.248 (Water Resource Unit)
E.281, E.283
L.113
E.284 / Satellite  3
Batt. 33 (Safety  Officer)
Batt. 48 (Resource Unit Leader)
Rescue Battalion, Safety Battalion
Fieldcom 1, Tactical Support Unit 2
Command Tactical Unit

Div. 15 "We are in exterior operations with one tower ladder. Second tower ladder set-up. Two lines stretched and in operation. Heavy smoke condition. Fire is "Doubtful.""
 

Lloyd Mitchell is a photojournalism student. His main focuses are breaking news and humanities as well as crimes and fires. Lloyd also covers college and professional sports such as minor league baseball. He uses photojournalism to tell a story and to make a difference in his local communities at school in Buffalo and at home in Brooklyn.

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Court raises issues of liability, training and funding.

Then….

"Mark My Words"

"Again, we're not calling for departments to abandon safe practices in order to put it all on the line for rescues. We encourage you to operate as directed by your department's policies. We do want you to be aware of a few things that hopefully will lead you and your department to ask "Can it happen to us?""

Now…

"Rare prosecution of fire department sparks angst over liability, funding"

"The case stems from an early morning restaurant fire in September 2009 when volunteer firefighters arrived to the frantic screams of a woman saying her boyfriend was trapped in the apartment upstairs."

""My concern is that, if in future, potential incident commanders are worried about possible litigation, is that going to make them second-guess their rescue decision?" said Mike Molloy, chief of the Meaford fire department now being prosecuted."

and…

"The defence argues the safety guidelines Meaford allegedly failed to follow are not legally binding, and says the ministry gave a no-prosecution promise at the start of the investigation.

Make sure your house is in order before you find yourself in court.

Bill Carey is the daily news and blog manager for Elsevier Public Safety (FireRescue Magazine/Firefighter Nation, JEMS and LawOfficer sites.) Bill also manages the FireEMSBlogs.com network and is a former volunteer lieutenant with the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George's County, Maryland.

We encourage and support constructive dialogue and debate. View our comment policy.

Having various plans is like having various resources. You'll never be stuck trying to solve any fireground problem with the same solitary solution.

Many of you have taken Firefighter Survival Training.  While it varies from place to place, depending on the instructors, the core information and intent is the same, to prepare firefighters to save themselves when things go wrong.  From bailouts to low profile maneuvers to breathing control, all these things are taught to teach firefighters what to do when things gone wrong and they get stuck. 

But what about not getting stuck in the first place?  What if we went about things in such a way that we didn’t allow ourselves to get jammed up in the first place?  Chief John Norman talks about never putting yourself in a position where you have to rely on someone else to get you out, in his book “Fire Officer’s Handbook of Tactics”. 

It is critical that every firefighter perform a size up of the building based on their assignment.  As part of this size up, we should determine what tools we need to accomplish out tasks, how we are going to get to where we need to go and how we are going to get out if we have to. 

It is critical that we don’t blindly rush into the building before we get a good look at it.  How many stories is it? Where are the windows?  Are there other entrances?  Are there fire escapes?  Do we need ground ladders?  Have ladders already been thrown? 

We also need to be concerned with the conditions.  Where is the fire?  Where is it going? What are the smoke conditions?  It may seem like a lot of information, but it is information that you cannot afford to miss.  Many of us answer these questions without consciously thinking about it.  We have considered these things at every fire we have gone to, and they are part of our muscle memory.  But often, especially in departments that are going to less fires, these thoughts and observations do not come automatically. 

These Maryland firefighters practicing the popular Denver Drill in their RIT training are expanding their knowledge base by having one more way to remove a downed firefighter. (FITHP/Bruce Secrist photo)
More at RIT Drill – Station 400 – Ridgely, Md.

Every fire is different, regardless of how similar it seems to the one before.  We must expect that the unexpected is going to happen and prepare ourselves for when everything goes wrong.  Think about it before your next fire, because the time to start planning isn’t when you get off the truck.  Knowing your district, your buildings, the hazards and your function gives you plenty of information to think about before the call ever comes in.  Once the alarm sounds that information should be easily recalled and added to the information received with the dispatch, so that by the time you get to the box, you already have a good idea of what you may be up against.  The final piece of building Plan B is looking at the building.  This quick look, plus the rest of your size up should give you all the information you need to accomplish your task and to get out if things go wrong.

Recently there was an article that is an excellent example of what is being discussed.  A firefighter arrived at a fire in a single family residence.  The fire was in the basement and companies were operating there.  The firefighter walked up to the building and quickly looked down the Bravo and Delta sides, before he went inside to assist with fire attack.  He noticed that the house was set into a hill, and that on both side there were full windows at the basement level.  He then entered the building and was caught in a collapse of the first floor.  After he landed in the basement, he got his bearing and remembered the window he had seen on the Bravo Side.  He quickly crawled to the window and was able to self extricate with no assistance.

Had this firefighter not taken the couple of seconds it took to size up the building, the outcome could have been very different.  Instead of going to the hospital or worse, he went home.  Why?  Because he practiced good size up techniques and did not put himself in a position where he needed others to help him get out.  He had a Plan B.

Dave LeBlanc is a Lieutenant with the Harwich, Massachusetts Fire Department.In addition to his regular duties, Dave also manages the Department’s Radio system, is responsible for conducting Fire Investigations, and assists in maintaining the computers systems.

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